Hong Kong (RAE - China) - Mainland Chinese charged recruitment fees and passports withheld (2012)

Unionists suspect that many of Hong Kong’s private residential care homes for the elderly may have been illegally underpaying care assistants from the Chinese mainland and withholding their travel documents. In July, the Community Care and Nursing Home Workers General Union protested to the Hong Tak Institution for Old Age, accusing the institution of extracting five months’ salary from six female care assistants as a fee - charged with no prior agreement - for obtaining the job, of not paying overtime, and of withholding workers’ travel documents. All six care assistants at the facility came from Guangxi province through the Labour Department’s Supplementary Labour Scheme, the purpose of which is «to alleviate manpower shortages». The Labour Department reportedly did not investigate the case despite the union’s complaints in 2010.